Still sore from shoveling yesterday, but at least I'm still alive. That slushy stuff is the worst!

Interesting Monday puzzle from Gareth today. The theme was cute, but I didn't notice it until afterwards. Overall a typical easy Monday, except that DIDO was most definitely NOT a Monday level word. Also, some of the clues seemed strangely over-specific to me. Why is ODOR a "stale smell" instead of just a "smell"? And why does ISSUE need to be "controversial"? No big deal, just seemed a bit odd to me...

It’s nice to be back and working crosswords again. Good thing for me, it is a Monday puzzle. I got the theme, too! Thanks, Argyle and Gareth for a breakfast treat.

When Cruciverb is down, I click on CC’s link. When the error message pops up, I click on the link word, ‘home,’ in the message. The puzzle is workable there, although not as friendly as my usual puzzle. games.latimes.com also gives a workable puzzle on my iPad.

DOHA was an easy start. A couple years ago my 3 young grandchildren moved to live with me while their AF single father was deployed to Qatar his 4th time. They did well in their dad’s old school.

New avatar is from yesterday in Vail, CO. #3 son, John, is holding niece, Gabbie, me, #2 son, Bart, is holding his newest daughter, Diana. I have never been to a ski resort in the winter so I saw lots of new things. We were atop the mountain across from major ski runs, so I watched skiers, snow groomers, snow makers, decorated trees and holiday lights from high above. There were surprisingly relatively few skiers my sons said. I was the babysitter.Thanks for the holiday letter, Husker. It opened right up on my iPad.

Well, I was going to post the WIKI Answers link to the history of diddly squat, but Desper-otto beat me to it. The early bird gets the worm.

I've heard it or read it as, "You don't know diddly squat" and "You don't know diddly" and "You don't know squat." I've also heard "You don't know Jack" which is a shortened version of a vulgar phrase with a similar meaning.

Musings-We have quit the Y and do all the theme answers at home with this simple equipment-Doc, when the oil runs out, what happens to all this in DOHA?-When SOSA got caught doping, he all of sudden couldn’t speak English in a congressional hearing-Every controversial ISSUE has a 24/7 news outlet on both sides-Did Beaver’s nuclear FAMILY ever really exist?-We got new ROOFING from hail after 5 years but MIL across town has needed a new roof for 30 years-The best NBA rivalry ever? CELTICS/Lakers – Larry/Magic-3 countries still using lbs and feet: USA, Liberia and Myanmar (BURMA)-Don’t get between Joann and HOT FUDGE and no one gets hurt-Groundbreaking I SPY was first weekly show co-starring a white and black actor-A two teaspoon DOSE followed by a “spoonful of sugar” perhaps-Fascinating Walking VINES (:19)-Hey Otto, if there’s no snow and it’s above 40, FORE!-“What’s that ODOR” seems very different from “What’s that aroma?”-Name the tune with the lyric “We had a quarrel, a lover’s SPAT. All right, I’m sorry, but my letter keeps coming back”

DIDDLY SQUAT brought me back to the many days spent in the locker room ( before and after practice/game, whatever) when anything went. A lot of lifetime friendships were forged in those confines. The term itself has many connotations, most of which are inappropriate in mixed company.

Winter has beset Ct in an ugly manner, lots of ice. My driveway is a skating rink. Tomorrow more snow, but without the sleet and icing mixture.

Easy enough today. When I got to the reveal I began to wonder how the theme worked. Confirmed my long entries and it actually assisted with ……CURL Perps helped with VANITY PRESS. Did not understand INSP before reading Argyle's write-up. No strikethroughs or searches were needed.EBB - Frequent puzzle visitor but am always glad to see it. When I was a kid, my mother would often wax poetic and sprinkle "Ebb und Floot" (ebb and flood) into her conversation.

We went to see the movie Nebraska yesterday and it was fabulous. It was about a man trying to reconnect with his alcoholic father by returning with him to his small hometown in Nebraska. I am a man who had an alcoholic father who grew up in small town Nebraska and so the connection was automatic although it could be any state (the director is Omahan Alexander Payne who made these other great movies) and any father/son relationship. To call it great is to damn with faint praise. You couldn’t spend a much better time at the movies this year.

Delightful Monday speed run, many thanks, Gareth. Did the puzzle just before I did my EXERCISES, although I'm not sure I do any of the theme specifics. Argyle, loved your Gingerbread House example of ORNATE.

I must be losing it, but I don't remember DIDO, even though I'm sure I did that October puzzle. Can anybody explain it to me again?

We hosted our 21st annual Christmas party last night. The weather was so warm in Laguna that our guests were able to sit on the patio with their champagne glasses. Made it the best party ever!

Thank you. Gareth Bain for a nice and easy puzzle ..... No, no, I really, really enjoyed it. Very good for a Monday. Thank you Argyle for a comprehensive review .... Loved all the info on the champagne .... One of these days I'm gonna find out what it tastes like. Something invented by a bunch of women has simply got to be great.

Thank you desperOtto for the entertaining history of Diddly Squat, why can't all history be so much fun ? I think we should invent a banknote, so we can put his portrait on it.

Thank you CED, so early in the day, so I get my RDA of requisite humor. You should compile an online DVD of all your meticulous research.

Did anyone also think of our friend, DoDo when d-do was a possible answer.?

Last weekend, I came across an ad for Google, .... Made by Ogilvy & Mather, an international ad agency, ( Indian division - ), which is on Youtube. It tugged at my heart strings, twanged my conscience, and touched the yearnings of my soul. It's touches on the "Partition" , a sad part of Indian and Pakistani independence history, and the chaos and catastrophe that followed the migration in 1948.

But the ad itself is about friendship, memories and brotherly love, despite the 65 years, from 1948 till 2013, (now).

... And of course, the use of Google search engines to locate old forgotten things and jiggle the memory...

It is the story of how a Hindu immigrant refugee, in Delhi could think of linking up with a Muslim childhood friend, from Lahore, (his original hometown ). ... Through their grandchildren .... And ( of course -) Google.

Maybe you might enjoy it .... It only 3.32. Minutes.

It is in Hindi, Urdu and Punjabi .... But it has subtitles , or they can be enabled, through the ad.

Happy Monday! I enjoyed the puzzle and finished it late last night. I don't think I've ever seen DIDDLY-SQUAT in a puzzle before, or even in print for that matter. Thanks Gareth and Argyle.

I enjoy my Safari homepage (NBCnews.com) very much. On my other browser, Firefox, I use the LA Times for a homepage. I started having problems yesterday. I have spent a while on the LA Times help phone line this morning. First, on hold with the most dreadful 'Hold music' I've ever had to sit through. A while ago, the LAT started allowing me to read about five articles a month (?) for free. So, I thought it would be worth it to sign up and pay so I could read as much as I wanted to. It all worked fine until yesterday when they asked me for my password again, made me change my password and I still kept getting error messages. So I called them this morning to try to straighten everything out. After the terrible music was over, a woman with an unusual accent (Thai?) tried to help me. Thirty minutes later I finally gave up. I told them to cancel the whole thing. The woman didn't seem too upset and was probably happy to get rid of me. So now I'm using Crosswordcorner.blogspot.com for my Firefox homepage.

Hello everybody. I laughed out loud at DIDDLY SQUAT, then laughed doubly loud at reading the story of the "historic" origin of the phrase that desper-otto posted. A fun puzzle today, indeed. Best wishes to you all.

Widwan:I am still teary from that link. It is beautifully rendered and rips at my heartstrings. Thank you.

Chickie:As usual, making the tamales was hard work but with many hands it moves along quickly. Since it was a weekday, Friday, we were a little shorthanded, but everyone pitched in to take up the slack. We made only 25 dozen

Today, my friend Kathy, whom you met on our trip, came and we had eggs and tamales for breakfast. Oh, my, they are good! Very light and fluffy.

58A. *Arc-shaped, finger-staining snack food : my first thought was BBQ ribs, and when that didn't fit, I kept trying to think of something similar like baby-back ribs until perps revealed I was thinking of the wrong type of foods entirely.

I seem to have picked the wrong words to lim this morning. I should have gone for something like

He diddled one girlfriend's G-spot,He diddled another one's slot.Until him wife caught himTied his diddler with a knot in,Now all he can do's diddly-squat!

Our son and his fiancee left yesterday after a wonderful nine-day visit. CT is much too far from ND, IMHO. Time to get back into the Y routine again, now that my vacation time is over. Christmas will be pretty quiet around here.

Like Barry, I wondered why ODOR was clued as a sour smell. But as HG said, ODOR has a nastier connotaion than smell.